


sidetracked

by petrichor (findingkairos)



Series: you better do what’s right or you’re gonna lose the fight [2]
Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Fix-It, Gen, Spoilers, Time Travel, Time loops is more accurate, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-09-25 08:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17117600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/petrichor
Summary: Aaron wakes up the next morning, late enough to skip breakfast, and is only mildly glad for it when he checks the date and almost chokes.*In which Miles's Uncle Aaron wakes up weeks before, on the morning of Wilson Fisk’s appointment with the particle accelerator. He chalks up his knowledge of his future as a nightmare. He does his job. He goes home. He goes to bed.He proceeds to wake up on the same morning multiple times.





	1. a fortress of distortion

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I was done with being in spider-hell. I was wrong. 
> 
> Titles (both fic and chapter) are from Home by Vince Staples. Rated T for cursing!
> 
> Also spoilers for like, the entire movie. If you haven't watched it yet, you probably shouldn't read this.

A bullet is always a bitch to breathe through, and this one is no different. Lying in an alleyway with his nephew staring at him like he’s not a major fuck-up and a disappointment is different, though.

Miles deserves better. Miles has always deserved better, and Aaron knows that fact down to his bones, even as he’s getting cold – shock – and his breathing gets shallower. When his brother had gone into the police force, eschewing the gangs and the graffiti and the hood and everything that had made them into the people that they were, Aaron had gone deeper into it. Had gotten better at it. Had gotten to be the best at it, until men like Wilson Fisk were calling him and asking if he wanted a job as an enforcer.

The gangs of New York aren’t quite like the mob, but it’s similar enough that Aaron hadn’t known what he’d have to do as an enforcer, going into it. He’d gone clear-eyed and clear-minded. This is what he knows how to do, and he does it well. He has no regrets about it.

Or at least he’d _thought_ that he’d had no regrets about it. Lying in an alleyway, dying, with his nephew makes him reconsider all of his life decisions.

This isn’t how he’d planned on leaving the world. He wouldn’t have passed quietly in a bed – slim chance, for a man like him. He’s not like Kingpin, comfortable in his power and in his influence. He would’ve gone down in a gunfight, maybe, and then it would’ve hopefully been quick. Or maybe an assassination, when someone found out about his work as the Prowler and thought to take him out before he got sent after them.

But this is what it is. Honest to God, Aaron had been expecting it, when he’d let go of his nephew’s throat like it’d burned him (it had) and stepped back with his hands up. Wilson Fisk does not suffer turncoats. Kingpin is angry enough and ruthless enough that a little blood on his hands is no worse than the metaphorical ones of all the hits he’d called in the name of business.

Prowler gets shot by his own employer, and Aaron dies in an alleyway, his nephew at his side, and the one prevailing thought is: _I’m sorry_.

***

Aaron wakes up in a cold sweat. He falls out of bed, comforter tangled around his legs, and he’s man enough to admit it.

It’s not the first time he’s dreamt of violence. A man like him in a work like his, washing off blood in the shower – his or a target’s – is a once-a-week pastime. Dreams are reflections of everyday life, and he’s faced down guns and thugs while both awake and asleep before.

This one had been different. Aaron stares at the clock on the wall. Seven-fifty-two. The sun’s already risen outside, bathing his apartment in pale morning light. He breathes in and his lungs don’t feel like they’re on fire. He paws at his chest, he’s not afraid to admit, and he doesn’t feel a hole.

When he takes off his shirt and inspects himself in the bathroom mirror, he finds nothing. Just phantom pain for a phantom wound.

He leans against the sink, hands clenched into fists, and tries to remember how to breathe.

***

In the course of the next hour he figures out the following facts:

One, today is a week and change before when he remembers dying. In other words, he has memories of several days of the _future_ crammed into his head. If that doesn’t make him sound like he’s been smoking something then Aaron doesn’t know what does.

Two, Spider-man is currently alive and _not_ Miles, for which Aaron is ridiculously glad. Except he still doesn’t know exactly _when_ Miles had gotten his spider-related powers, which Aaron is determined to figure out and maybe prevent. (Yeah, being able to stand up to a technologically-enhanced grownup had been awesome, but Miles is his nephew. He’s just a kid. He’ll get in trouble with someone, somewhere, and Aaron has been in the business long enough to know that shiny powers will just get you shot at.)

Three, today is the day that Fisk wants to turn on the collider, which means that Spider-man will be there. Aaron slams his feet into his good boots as he’s preparing to head out for the day, makes sure to slip a few more knives than usual into his gear. He’d had a bad dream, but he’s an adult. He has work to do.

Except what he’d thought had been a bad dream is most definitely not. His morning goes the same, almost word-for-word to what he remembers. The rest of it is a little dicey, since it’s several days’s worth of memories instead of a day’s, but it’s fine enough. He’s had déjà vu before, for different things, so it’s easy enough to shake off the feeling of _this has happened before_ and move on with his life.

Aaron gets a bulletproof vest to fit beneath the Prowler’s armor, though, because the Prowler armor might be lined of the latest bulletproof material that being on Fisk’s payroll could afford but extra insurance never hurts.

The day passes. Night falls. Fisk summons the Prowler and the Green Goblin, keeps them posted on the edges of his property while they’re warming up the collider. Aaron flexes his hands in his gauntlets, watching the tapering of his armored fingers into claws, noting how they gleam in the uncertain underground light. He keeps himself to Kingpin’s back, which is easy enough when half of your job is looming over your boss’s shoulder and looking threatening. He keeps an eye out for a gun on the man, and very consciously does not rub at the spot on his chest where dream-Kingpin had shot him.

This is a job, he reminds himself when they flip on the switch to the collider. He gets paid to do this. It’s what he’s good at.

It doesn’t make it any easier, watching Kingpin cave in a twenty-six-year-old’s ribcage with his bare hands.

This is a job. He chases after the teenager fleeing the scene, casting thoughts of his nephew out of his head, because he can’t have doubts like that while on the job. He’ll think about it later. He’ll worry about it later.

The kid slips out of his fingers, and the Prowler stalks back into the night, and Aaron goes home. He undoes the straps of his gear to the police scanner’s quiet murmuring, puts away the gauntlets and the armor and the vest to the news networks catching wind of a dead body in a superhero suit. When they get to the part where they find out it’s a twenty-six-year-old grad student named Peter Parker, he turns it off and goes to bed.

He wakes up the next morning, late enough to skip breakfast, and is only mildly glad for it when he checks the date and almost chokes.

It’s the same day. There’s no way it could be the same day. By the time he’d gone to bed it had been past midnight, the clock had rolled over, so _why_ –

His phone chimes. It’s Fisk, checking that the Prowler will still be on site when they turn on the collider so that he can sift through the multiverse for his dead wife and dead son.

Aaron barely makes it out of bed and into the bathroom in time for him to throw up.

***

Okay, so. He has memories of dying. Then he’d woken up, days pre-death from the dream. He’d gone through that day. He’d – heh – prowled around the edges of Fisk’s property, making sure no one unauthorized would get in.

He’d fought with Spider-man, alongside the rest of Fisk’s hired enforcers. He’d stood by as Kingpin had killed Spider-man.

He’d chased after the civvie fleeing from the scene, shoving away thoughts of too-small and too-young and way-too-nervy to be anybody old enough to play the fighting game.

He’d gone home, and showered, and tucked himself into bed.

He’d woken up the same morning, with the same date, with the same message of _Prowler, you better be on site to handle any complications to our plans_.

Aaron had seen a movie like this before, a long time ago back when he and Jeff had still been talking on relatively better terms than they are now, and from what he remembers of it he doesn’t like how it looks. He’s an adult, though. He has to pay rent and buy groceries somehow. Just because he’d had a nightmare within a nightmare doesn’t mean that he can back out of his job now.

He still goes through his morning in the same way. He gets his hands on a bulletproof vest, army-grade. Wearing both it and the Prowler suit is a tight fit, but Aaron will be damned before he gets shot at and killed because he’s fool enough to believe one layer of armor will be enough against armor-piercing rounds.

The day passes. Night falls. Fisk turns on the collider, Spider-man comes swinging in to stop him and gets killed for his trouble.

Throughout it all, Aaron watches, trying not to feel spooked when it all goes according to his dream. When he chases after the kid fleeing the premises he slows down just a little bit, trying to reconcile what he can see of the face in the middle of the chase with his nephew’s. Miles is supposed to be at his fancy away-school right now, not out on the streets.

But shit. He’d shown Miles the underground alcove, hadn’t he? He’d thought he’d done good, at the time, redirecting his nephew’s pent-up frustration into creativity instead of something destructive. Aaron still remembers the simmering rage beneath his skin when he’d been Miles’s age, at school and at life and at the universe in general, remembers thinking that at least this way Miles isn’t out in the streets and becoming something like, well.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and all that.

Aaron goes home and takes off the Prowler armor. He watches the news until they realize it’s Peter fucking Parker in the Spider-man suit, a twenty-six-year-old – God, that makes Aaron feel old – freshly out of fancy-ass college. He goes to bed.

He wakes up at seven-thirty in the morning, early enough to watch the morning light creep in through his window, and he doesn’t check his phone for the date until it chimes with a notification. Fisk is turning on his collider today.

Aaron refrains from throwing his phone at the wall, but only just.


	2. at war with my emotions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron hits his head against the wall of the universe. Repeatedly.
> 
> Eventually he figures it out.

He ends up stares at his own ceiling for a while, watching the play of light through his bedroom window as he thinks. There has to be a way to figure out what’s happening, to find out if these really are time loops and if so how to break them. That’s how the movie goes, right? The main character…does something…and that…does something, and he breaks out of his time-induced hellhole?

Aaron spends an hour of his morning looking up _Groundhog Day_ , its synopsis, its conspiracy theories, its meta-analysis. It’s a 1993 film, with all its period-typical cringey humor and plot devices. Its main character figures out that there’s no consequences for his actions so he goes wild.

The thought makes Aaron pause, because it’s the same in his case, isn’t it? Nothing he does today will stay, if the loops continue. No consequences, no retribution, and all that. He can case some pretty hefty security systems without getting flagged in anybody’s database. He can go back to being a cat burglar instead of an enforcer, at least for a little while. He can break into Fisk’s home and take him out before he can prove a threat to Miles’s safety.

The last is a really tempting thought, but Aaron shakes himself out of it – tempting or not there’ll be a hunt for his head if he goes through with it, and repeating loop or not Aaron doesn’t want to die a second time, made up in his head or not, thanks – and continues to read through the synopsis of the movie. The main character only breaks the loop when he lands the woman of his dreams, and here Aaron scoffs. There’s no one like that in his life. There hasn’t been for a while, and Aaron has no intentions of that changing anytime soon.

And since some patronizing version of a “happily ever after” is out of the question, he tilts himself out of bed and makes himself pull on his work gear, the Prowler suit shoved into a duffel bag for later. Until he has a concrete idea that these time loops are a thing that will _stay_ , he might as well treat every day like they’re the real thing. Aaron would hate to wake up and find that it’s the next day and Kingpin himself is after his head because he didn’t show up to his super-secret and super-important collider party.

***

It’s not fighting Spider-man that’s the hard part. It never is. The hard part is watching Kingpin kill the man – boy, really; Aaron is at least a decade older than the hero. Twenty-six, still a grad student from what the news will say about him. It throws Aaron, because don’t college kids graduate at twenty-four or some shit?

But what would Aaron know, he’d never gone to any college other than the community one, and he’d dropped out of even that after he’d started picking up steady work as the Prowler.

And every time that Aaron chases after the kid fleeing from the scene, he becomes more and more certain that it’s Miles. The thought makes something in his chest clench, something that he struggles to breathe through, even with all of the Prowler suit’s technological enhancements. He slips just a little in the chase with his bike, finds himself pulling his lunges just a little in case he makes actual contact with the kid.

Because fuck. They’re all kids to him. Aaron is too old for this shit, fighting Spider-man or fighting Miles both. They’re both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, filled with hope and a naïve kind of justice. Peter Parker wants to save the people of New York, and to a certain extent, even Wilson Fisk from his own disappointment in not being able to resurrect his dead wife and dead son. Miles still has the hesitance of a puppy growing into his legs, still likes art and feels the buzz of a teenager trying to find his own way in the world.

Compared to that, Aaron is just a washed-up old man that’s taken more than a few wrong turns.

When he gets up to the roof, watching the civvie – kid – Goddamnit, _Miles_ – go, he stays there for a while, ignoring Kingpin’s increasingly annoyed texts. Even if the time loops were to end tonight, he can deal with it. Spider-man might be dead but Aaron can ditch the Prowler persona, drop by Miles’s fancy school and make sure he’s doing alright. The Kingpin might have a lot of money but he still doesn’t know the Prowler’s true identity; Aaron had made sure of that, with layers upon layers of fake IDs and misdirecting records.

God, even in his head he’s admitting that this whole time loop bullshit might be real. Which begs the question: if the time loop bullshit is real, then what else is? The nightmare? Him dying a second time? Kingpin shooting him in the back?

Before Aaron makes any move, he needs to confirm things. He needs to have all the facts, know where all the cards are. He goes back home and undresses, takes a shower. He doesn’t turn on the television or check the news on his phone. He goes to bed, staring at his ceiling for a few long hours before he falls asleep.

As soon as he gets up the next morning and checks that no, the date hasn’t incremented, he’s still stuck in a loop of the day that Kingpin turns on the collider, Aaron rolls out of bed, pulls on civvie clothing, and is out the door to Miles’s fancy school.

***

All in all, the place isn’t bad. It’s like an away-from-home version of the high school bullshit that he worked through, all those years ago, except with a lot of posh clothing and posh students and posh teachers. Aaron has to admit that it fits Miles, though. It’s a lot of work, math and science and who-knows-what-else, but Miles is a smart kid. He’s up to the challenge.

No, it’s when Miles sneaks out of school that it gets bad. Miles calls his mobile and Aaron is so, so tempted to pick up, but he doesn’t. He’d be doing something different than what he’s done up until now. In order to confirm his hunch, to a certainty that’s without a shadow of a doubt, Aaron has to play this the same way he’s done so for the last…

God, three days. He’s been doing the same thing for three days now. Today’s the fourth. Aaron has a moment to wonder if this means that on his next birthday he’s technically four days older than he should be before he has to hustle to keep up with Miles.

His nephew runs away to the place that Aaron had shown him to graffiti his heart out, and Aaron wants to curse up a storm. He refrains, instead counting steps and seconds until he’s sure that Miles is far ahead enough that he can follow without being seen or heard.

They reach Kingpin’s collider, and there Aaron _does_ curse, low under his breath and a long string of insults and expletives that he hasn’t used for a while now. The sound of the collider warming up and Kingpin’s other lackeys being sent out to battle Spider-man covers up any noise he makes, which he’s glad for. He hadn’t brought his Prowler suit, hadn’t wanted to risk being caught following his nephew with the very obvious armor of a villain.

But here is the confirmation that Aaron had wanted. The person that flees the scene from here is Miles, and without the Prowler someone else will be sent to chase after him in order to tie up loose ends. In order for him to get his nephew out safely, he’ll need to either sneak Miles out without Kingpin noticing, or he’ll need to fight whichever of Kingpin’s lackeys end up on the chase.

And Aaron knows which he’d prefer, so he bides his time and waits. Without the Prowler present it’s the Tombstone that’s hovering behind Kingpin’s shoulder, watching the Green Goblin and Spider-man fight. When everybody’s distracted, Aaron shimmies up to where Miles and, though it hurts his heart, he grabs his nephew with a firm hand over his mouth and the other arm pinning down his arms and starts pulling him backwards.

Miles struggles, of course, which makes Aaron proud in a distant sort of way. It takes him a moment to recognize Aaron, during which Aaron is holding his breath and praying to a God he only half-believes in that neither Kingpin nor his lackeys will notice. But with how dramatic Spider-man is being, Aaron is at least able to drag himself and Miles into cover.

When Aaron flips his nephew around, the first thing he notices is the whites of Miles’s eyes, visible even in the terrible light. “Quiet,” he hisses, and when Miles makes a questioning sound he presses his hand more firmly to Miles’s mouth. “You need to be absolutely quiet, Miles, or you and I will both die here.”

He feels bad, scaring Miles like that, but it gets his nephew to still and for now that’s enough. Kingpin will be too agitated at the last thing that Spider-man had said to him in order to notice, if both he and Miles are quiet, and Tombstone will be busy dumping the body. Aaron keeps his hand on Miles’s mouth and waits, looking into his nephew’s eyes, watching his breathing slow down to match Aaron’s. With how close they are, tucked in behind a piece of rubble and their backs to what’s happening, Aaron can see Miles’s flinch when Kingpin’s hands come down.

He’s heard a man’s ribs cracking underneath those massive hands enough times to recognize it. Miles’s eyes widen – he’s never been an idiot, and usually Aaron would be _so proud_ of that but for once he wishes that that big brain of Miles’s hadn’t put it together. That though Aaron can do nothing about the fact that he would have heard someone dying, at least Miles wouldn’t realize it for what it was until the news networks announce it to the world tonight.

“Get rid of the body,” the Kingpin says, and walks away without waiting for Tombstone’s acknowledging grunt. Aaron counts in his head, has to force himself to wait until he reaches two hundred and twelve before he feels steady enough to tuck Miles into his side and sneak out into the subway tunnels.

Thank God, Miles keeps quiet until they’re away. The silence is most likely due to shock, though his skin isn’t clammy and he doesn’t look like his heart is about to beat out of his chest. Aaron will take his blessings where he can, though, and just tucks Miles into his coat with him when they clamber onto the subway train platform.

“He’s like me,” Miles murmurs when they’re on a train car and it’s pulling out of the station, hurtling towards home. It takes Aaron a moment to realize that Miles is talking, and then another to figure out who he’s talking _about_. “He – he has the same powers as me, and he was standing up to Kingpin, and, and.”

Miles quiets. Aaron holds him closer. He’s not good with this emotional shit, but it’s part of being an adult. Of being an uncle. It’s the same thing as showing Miles the shoulder thing, except for a different purpose. “That why you were down there?” he asks, because he needs to know, and Miles nods. That answers that question, then. “You liked the guy?”

“ _Everybody_ likes him, Uncle Aaron. And now–” Miles doesn’t look at him, but Aaron thinks that it might’ve been easier, if he had. “He’s dead, isn’t he. Spider-man is dead.”

The last is said quietly, but people still glance at the two of them, attention drawn by the name of their favorite New York City superhero and their faces paling what Miles had said starts to sink in. Aaron glares at them all until they return to their own business, and then he risks a glance down at Miles.

“Yeah,” he says when he finds his voice again. And, because he doesn’t know what else to say: “I’m sorry, Miles. I really am.”

The thing is, Aaron _is_ , if only because he sees, now, how much it tears up Miles on the inside. From being there when a man died or from the fact that the man who died is Spider-man, his hero and could-have-been mentor, Aaron doesn’t yet know.

“Why were you there, Uncle Aaron?” Here Miles _does_ look at him, and he looks confused and wary. There’s a shade of accusation in there, too, in the way he pulls himself away a little bit in order to look Aaron properly in the eye. “I called you and you didn’t pick up. How did you know to come find me?”

He’s a man who’s embraced who he’d become, when Jeff had turned away from it. Aaron still needs to take a moment before he can answer. “I had a feeling you were gonna be in trouble, squirt, so I came to bail you out. I was the one who showed you the damn alcove, so I knew there was something weird goin’ on ‘round the corner, but.”

He can’t say _I never knew that this would happen_ , because that would be a lie. _I didn’t know that it connected to Fisk’s place_ is equally as false. But thank God Miles doesn’t push, just resettles against Aaron’s side and puts his head on Aaron’s shoulder.

And as his phone starts to light up with news notifications of Peter Parker’s death, Aaron puts Miles to bed on his couch with a comforter pulled off his own bed. He leaves all the things needed for hot cocoa, minus the milk, on the kitchen counter so that if Miles wakes up in the middle of the night those things are readily available. He goes to his bathroom and stares himself down in the mirror. The bathroom light is bright white, bringing the dark circles under his eyes into stark relief.

 _I’m having a mid-life crisis_ , he thinks when he’s lying in bed, still alert for any sound, any hint, that Miles will need something from him. Comfort, maybe, or help with the punching bag while he works his feelings out. _I’m the damn Prowler and I’m stuck in what might be a time loop and I’m having a Goddamn mid-life crisis_.

That was also how the movie had gone, hadn’t it? The protagonist’d had a mid-life crisis of his own, until he’d been shocked into being a good person. Aaron is doubtful that’ll happen to him – he’s been in the business for too long for any transition into an above-the-table life to be easy, and the Prowler is still on the Kingpin’s payroll. One doesn’t simply break a contract with Wilson Fisk without the man coming after their head, and Aaron knows that for a fact because he’s been sent after those people before.

But the feeling of Miles’s weight against his side, heavy and weary, still haunts him. He’d thought he’d be the cool uncle, in order to balance out Jeff’s straight-laced and well-meant but hard-to-swallow affection. Look at how that’s backfired now. Aaron is a villain, an enabler, and the very thing he’d shown Miles in order to help had been the thing to break Miles’s good heart and faith in the world.

 _He’s like me_ , Miles had said. He’d been changed, already had his powers. That’s not something that Aaron can change, unless he wakes up _further_ in the past. So what can he do? If he wakes up and the day has passed, he’ll have to be the one to help Miles with his powers. If he wakes up and he’s still in the time loop, then…

Aaron doesn’t know what he’ll do. Stare at his walls, maybe. Try to stop Miles from going to the subway at all, probably.

Plan made, he does his best to sleep, and doesn’t leave his bedroom even when he hears Miles rattling around in the kitchen making his hot cocoa. God knows that he hadn’t liked people poking around, asking how he’s doing, when he’d seen a man die for the first time, and Aaron doubts that Miles will be any different.

***

Aaron wakes up to his phone buzzing. It’s a text from an unidentified number, as it always is. _Prowler, you better be on site to handle any complications to our plans_.

He buries his head in his blankets again and thinks. Miles will be going down to the alcove in order to look for answers. He won’t be there – he won’t be in Kingpin’s crosshairs at all – if Aaron gives them to him.

After Miles’s school day is over, they sit down for a somewhat awkward but ultimately necessary conversation at a nearby café. Aaron prods, cajoles, and baits until he gets an answer out of his nephew. _Yes, weird things have been happening. Yes, it started after we visited the subway station. No, I haven’t told anybody about it. How did you know to ask, Uncle Aaron_?

Aaron sidesteps that question as best he can, playing it up as a result of how well he knows Miles. And, thank God, Miles lets that slide. They figure out a time over the weekend when Miles can come over and they can figure out how they’ll go from here with Miles’s powers, because Jeff will have Aaron’s head if he interrupts Miles’s trial week of the new school.

He ignores increased buzzing of his phone, as Kingpin tries to figure out where the Prowler is. No matter how good the pay, right now Miles is his priority. If making sure that his nephew doesn’t have to see or hear Spider-man die is enough to break the time loop, Aaron will gladly take on the challenge of throwing Kingpin and his lackeys off his and his family’s tracks, no matter how annoying or time-consuming that’ll be.

Aaron drops off Miles at his school and heads up to the roof, where he can see the kids come and go. He watches the sunset from his vantage point, people-watching but mostly keeping an eye on Miles’s dorm window. Night falls. The moon rises, and with it, the stars.

He checks his phone hours later, and the news networks are on time with their report of Spider-man’s death. Aaron spares a moment to wonder if he’s the only one stuck in this loop or if anybody else is, too, before he shakes it off and goes home. He washes up, makes himself a late dinner, goes to bed.

He wakes up early, watching the light filter through his windows, and doesn’t check his phone until it buzzes. It’s the same text from Kingpin again. The time loop hasn’t broken. Aaron refrains from screaming in frustration, but it’s a near thing. What, does he have to save Spider-man too or something, because other than the collider trial that’s the _only_ thing of importance that’s happening today–

Well. That’s a thought. Not one that Aaron particularly _likes_ , because pulling it off is going to be a headache and a half, but it’s an easier one than figuring out how to shut down a collider in a permanent fashion within a twenty-four-hour window.

“No consequences,” Aaron reminds himself. If even saving the stupid twenty-six-year-old kid’s ass doesn’t work, he’ll just swipe enough TNT to blow the collider sky-high. The damn thing is probably the source of his issue, anyway, since if it can pull people from alternate universes who’s to say that it can’t shove people into a time loop and keep them there.

And the good news is, Aaron loses nothing if the fact that Spider-man surviving instead of dying doesn’t break the time loop. If it works, he’ll also stop Miles from looking so lost, since his favorite superhero doesn’t die, and with the added life debt Aaron can probably pressure Spider-man into mentoring Miles with his newfound powers. All in all, it’s a good plan.

Now all he needs to do is figure out how he’s going to interfere in a fight between Spider-man and the Green Goblin, or even steal Spider-man from beneath Kingpin’s nose, without revealing that he’s the Prowler.

“Fuck,” Aaron mutters into the morning light. “Stealing from the Met’d be easier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, Aaron Davis of the comics that the movie is based off of actually did start out as a [cat burglar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prowler_\(comics\)#Ultimate_Marvel).
> 
> The Met is the [the Metropolitan Museum of Art](https://www.metmuseum.org/), a real museum in New York City, New York.


	3. not askin’ no questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron gets close, and then has a momentary setback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My boy won the Oscars!!! ~~so now I'm contractually obligated to finish the fic~~

It’s more than a little off-putting, being back in his old gear again, but there’s nothing for it. Prowler is a known variable, and one that’s on Kingpin’s payroll to boot. It would be great to have the technology and weaponry and armor available to Prowler to be available to _Aaron_ when he goes on this self-righteous universe-prompted rescue, but that’s not an option if he wants Parker to trust him and Kingpin to _not_ go after his head the second the betrayal is revealed.

So Aaron pulls on the bulletproof vest and the cargo pants, the big old hoodie that makes him just one more black man in a sea of them on the streets of NYC, the baseball cap that’s one-of-a-thousand and just as hard to track in a crowd. It’s all old habits and residual instincts that guides his hand and makes sure he keeps a knife tucked in his boot and a second within easy reach on his belt, concealed by the hoodie.

But it’s all modern day pragmatism that has him strapping on the bicep armor and tucking a Taser into one pocket, a couple of flashy toys into the other. This is the first time that he’s going to be picking a fight with Kingpin’s goons, because there’s no way in hell he’s getting between Spider-man and the Green Goblin and _not_ be prepared to fight. If Aaron’s going to commit foolhardiness, then he’s going in prepared.

The mantra of _No consequences_ keeps repeating through his head, even as the repeated day presses into his ribs. This is the sixth time that he’s running the same day over again. It’s the same push-pull of the morning crowd, of sliding onto the trains, of watching the underbelly of the city rush by.

But this isn’t the same play that he’s running. No one knows who Spider-man is – well, _yet_. After the kid dies everyone will know who their favorite superhero is. But right now the public doesn’t know _yet_ , and that gives Aaron a heads-up.

He could track down the kid right down to his address, but that’s a bad idea on multiple levels – Aaron would be showing his hand too early. He can’t drop off an anonymous tip, either, because people have tried that in hopes of trapping Spider-man for an interview or an ambush, and the guy is too wary of things like that to take it in the face-value that Aaron would need him to. Spider-man had swiped his first collider-killing USB stick from Alchemax, and outside of the Prowler suit Aaron is just a man. He doesn’t have any fancy powers or web-slinging mojo to help him out in a tough spot.

But what Aaron _can_ do is play interference with Miles so that the kid will _stay away_ from the danger zone while Aaron gets this shit under control. He can sneak into Kingpin’s fortress, because the Prowler has been there and where the Prowler’s been, the villain had left backdoors open for Aaron Davis to take advantage of. He can snag the incriminating evidence while Kingpin is on his high, believing that no one is yet out to stop him, and he can sabotage the Green Goblin and the other nasties ahead of time.

If he saves Spider-man from death and the timeloop doesn’t trigger, then he’ll make sure that his nephew meets his hero. If not, well. He’s sneaking into Kingpin’s fortress anyway; he might as well swipe explosives on the way out, too, on top of the incriminating evidence.

***

It’s both easier and harder than he’d thought it would be sneaking into Kingpin’s fortress and keeping Miles distracted at the same time. Easier, because Kingpin anxious and distracted by the collider experiment tonight, and so he’s looking for superheroes out to stop him, not one lone man out to drag the skeletons out of his closet. Harder, because Aaron needs to intersperse that with keeping Miles on the level, answering questions about what to do if he hits puberty and he’s sweating a little too much and his hands are sticking to everything in sight.

(The first, Aaron advises him to take a deep breath and ignore for now, because as cliché as the saying is puberty, too, shall pass. The cure for the second is to actually _use_ the deodorant that Rio buys him. The third, well. That’s what Aaron is going to blackmail Spider-man into teaching Miles.)

Aaron doesn’t even need to threaten anyone on his way out, which is good. He leaves Wilson Fisk’s office with a copy of every single bribery, forgery, and scrap of blackmail that he’s got on his competitors, because of course the industrialist does. Aaron had been the one to steal some of them for it. But Aaron also leaves the building only after he’s got Fisk’s copy of the collider schematics and gizmo information, and _that’s_ the USB stick he tucks in close into his vest, next to his heart.

And if he walks out with some experimental and explosive tech, too, the kind that the Prowler had made the grabby hands for but could never steal without Kingpin knowing, well. Aaron Davis will make good use of it.

***

God, Parker is young. Aaron had thought he’d been prepared, when he’d pulled on his old raid gear and hustled his ass down to the collider. He’d thought he’d accepted for how much of a _kid_ Parker would be, compared to him. The voice is deep and matured enough that even while the Green Goblin is throwing him around, Spider-man sounds like he’s in control.

But then again, Peter Parker had known Norman Osborn in before the latter had been turned into a monster, hadn’t he. Aaron had known that, but watching this – Spider-man trying to talk down the Green Goblin even while he’s dodging broken ribs and spine-shattering strikes – makes the truth of it sink home.

Aaron takes in a breath. Lets it out. Takes another. Then he pulls the black bandana back up his nose, pulls the ski goggles over his eyes, and rolls and comes up shooting.

The first burst of _tat-tat-tat_ takes the both of them surprise – Spider-man ducks, while the Green Goblin swings his head around trying to look for the source. And Kingpin might have built the collider, but it’s not pristine yet, it still has the scaffolding and the detritus from the first round of building. Aaron takes refuge behind those, ignoring the bright red-and-blue spandex figure swinging around, and reloads.

Above, backlit by the collider’s bright light like some religious figure if that religious figure happened to have Dr. Frankenstein mess around with his genes, the Green Goblin sways. “Norman!” Spider-man calls out, and lands nearby. Goddamn, does the kid not have any sense? “What did you _do_?”

The last, though, isn’t directed at the Green Goblin. It’s directed at Aaron. He can’t talk here without Kingpin and Tombstone recognizing his voice, so Aaron settles for waving him down and giving him a field sign.

“Incapacitated?” Spider-man translates. God, the kid knows sign language too? “Look, I don’t know who you are, but thanks, I guess? But I really need to get going. Dimension-killing collider to stop.”

 _Goody-two-shoes down to his_ core, Aaron thinks to himself, and checks the cartridge on his tranq gun. _Go_ , he signs, and when Spider-man hesitates he does it again, annoyance sharpening his movements.

Spider-man goes. Aaron crouches, checking Green Goblin’s pulse. In the first few cycles, here is the place where the Prowler would have bodily tackled Spider-man away from the control panel. The Prowler isn’t here, though. Aaron Davis is, and Aaron tags Green Goblin in the back with one of the toys in his pocket. He’s seen the guy in action; he’s not taking the chance that the guy metabolizes elephant-level sedatives fast enough.

Then there’s gunfire, the proper kind, not the fake hollow-sounding ones that Aaron’s tranq gun makes, and Aaron dives and rolls. Toomes – Tombstone – has arrived, his grey skin apparent even through the ski goggles’s red tint on the world. Kingpin will be on the observation deck, anxiously watching to see how the collider experiment goes down. Green Goblin is down, and that’s the sole flyer; Tombstone has guns, not a jetpack. Prowler had been the one to get up to where the control panel is. Miles isn’t here, because Aaron had _made sure of that_ before he’d made his way down here.

Toomes is still shooting, and Spider-man makes the lunge to try and stop him before the collider turns on, but – no. The machine is something too big to stop without the override, and the only other place to access that would have been the observation deck, except Kingpin is on there. If Aaron reveals himself to the big man, he loses the surprise advantage.

So he shifts the modified gun and its tranq rounds to one hand – shooting with any accuracy will be harder, Tombstone’s center mass is gonna be significantly harder to hit than Green Goblin’s, but Aaron will make it work – and pulls out the flashbang with the other. He waits for a moment in the fighting when Spider-man is in the air and Tombstone is on the ground. Barely a hand’s width of space opens up between the two of them at any one time, even though Spider-man must be moving with at least two bruised ribs by now.

But all Aaron needs is that hand’s width of space, so the next opening he has, he takes it. The flashbang flies through the air, its trajectory true – Aaron makes his own toys. He knows the heft of them as well as he knows the heft of the Prowler’s gloves. It hangs in the air for just a moment, where Aaron’s world is tinted red but he can still see the Tombstone’s expression flickering in surprise.

Then the flashbang goes off, and the collider turns on, and Aaron swings an arm around Spider-man’s torso and hustles them to safety.

“Wait,” Spider-man wheezes, and doesn’t _sound_ like his lung is collapsing at least, “wait, _wait_ , we have to stop it! I have to get up there and–”

Aaron tightens his grip around the guy’s stomach as best he can, just hard enough to be a warning, and keeps them moving.

They’ve just reached the wall of the collider-room when there’s a low-bass boom in the direction of above and to the left. Then another, to the right. Then another, and another, until the mouth of the collider breaks apart from the rest of it with a shatter of steel and the weird-ass motherfucking glitching stops messing with his peripheral vision.

Spider-man makes confused noises the entire way back to the spray-paint mural alcove that Aaron had introduced his nephew to. Some of them are legitimate questions, which Aaron ignores the same as the constantly-running commentary. When they’re halfway down the subway tunnel, though, is when Spider-man digs his heels in.

Aaron can’t help the grunt when the arm he’s put around the guy’s torso is near ripped out of its shoulder socket. He drops the guy like a sack of potatoes for that, but Spider-man bounces back upward, still as cheery as ever. He’s somewhat singed around the edges – fire and explosions will do that to you – but he seems to have recovered from the flashbang okay. “Okay, questions time, because you are _really_ not helping the theory that you’re an evil guy,” Spider-man says. “Who’re you?”

Kingpin isn’t here, but Aaron doesn’t have a voice modulator on. He stares at Spider-man for a long moment, trying to intimidate him into backing down. The mask-eyes widen. The guy doesn’t move.

Light floods the end of the subway tunnel, and instinct drives Aaron to drag Spider-man to the wall and flatten them both against it. The train rushes past, its slipstream threatening to blow the hood straight off his head; Aaron holds himself still, and keeps his hand on Spider-man’s chest.

“Different question, then,” Spider-man says after the train is gone. He peels himself off of the wall and turns to face Aaron properly. Aaron’s boots give him just a few inches of a height advantage over the guy, but out of them, well. The twenty-six-year-old is nearly of height with him. “ _Why_ did you help me?”

Aaron doesn’t know a sign for _Kingpin_ but he does for _danger_. Then _help_. Then he’s out of words, because field signs that the gangs had used in order to keep communication fast and secret doesn’t include the ones for _timeloop_ and _it’s a long story_.

Spider-man continues to stare. Aaron wonders what New York City’s favorite superhero sees; he’s wearing a hood and a tac vest over his bulletproof one, army-black pants, combat boots. A black bandanna hiding the lower half of his face, with ski goggles over his eyes. His targets had thought he’d looked like a young kid playing make-believe being an elite soldier, and they’d thought that until Aaron had busted down their door on behalf of whoever had been his employer of the month.

But all Peter Parker says is “Thank you,” and though his stance is good – feet shoulder-width apart, enough space between himself and Aaron in case he needs to swing up or away – there’s something about the slope of his shoulders that suggests a slump. “I really need to get back, though. That collider, if he tries to turn it back on, will destroy New York. You don’t have to look into the dimensional anomaly in order to understand that.”

That’s true. Because the thing is that Aaron’s explosives had been too little, too late. Kingpin is a millionaire; he’ll be able to fix the damn thing within a week. But Aaron might not get to _have_ that week, if the timeloop keeps happening.

There’s only one way to find out, really. Spider-man hasn’t left yet, and the stink of iron and metal is getting strong. He’s not bleeding from an artery – that damned Spider Sense that all the comics talk about must be good for _something_ – but he holds himself like it hurts to stand straight. Aaron’s familiar with that feeling.

So he digs through one of the many pockets on his pants, moving slow and keeping the other hand open and empty to show that no, he’s not going for the tranq gun, and pulls out a burner phone. He presses it into the guy’s hand and curls his fingers around it.

 _Leave_ , he signs with both hands, _regroup_ , and then he grabs Spider-man by the wrist and drags them both out of the subway tunnels.

***

It’s a testament to how injured – or startled, maybe; Aaron hasn’t seen many other heroes lining up to help Spider-man in his shtick of looking out for the little guy – that Parker lets him drag them through the subway station and back up to level ground. People get out of their way, but they don’t stare; in New York City, a guy dressed as Spider-man and one who could be a homebrew shock trooper doesn’t raise eyebrows.

“Wait, wait,” Parker says behind him, “where’re we going, I told you we need to get back to–”

Aaron doesn’t give him the chance to finish. He stops – Spider-man doesn’t run into his back; it’s almost impressive – and, without looking away from those white mask-eyes, he jabs the guy in the ribs.

Spider-man hisses, shrinking back from the touch. “Alright, fine, yeah, they’re bruised. But I still need to do my job. Thanks for your help, and all, but retreat is not an option. If I give up,” and he says this last quietly, “then everyone in New York City will disappear.”

Aaron stays where he is. The people of the city swirl around them, water going around the obstruction of stone. He signs, one-handed, _help_ , and then _injured_ , and then _regroup_. When Spider-man looks suspicious and hesitant, he signs the last again.

Finally, the guy says, “Fine. I’ll go home and get my injuries treated, and then I’ll return to stop the collider once and for all. I’m assuming you want me to call you through the phone you gave me?”

That’s obvious. Aaron nods, exaggerating the movement. The Spider-mask doesn’t have a mouth to gesture with, but he imagines he can see the lips twisting beneath it anyway.

Spider-man tips him a sarcastic one-fingered salute, and then slings away with the other hand. Aaron watches him go, curling his toes in his boots, his fingers in his gloves. If this is the right decision, the right move to make – keeping this twenty-fucking-six-year-old alive, instead of shutting down the collider – he doesn’t know. He won’t know until tomorrow morning.

On his way home, one of the guys staring at the dimensional distortions says “I think it’s a Banksy,” into his phone, and Aaron _just_ manages to not hit him. Banksy is a _European_ street artist, not an American one, and quite frankly Aaron is embarrassed on that anonymous guy’s behalf.

***

In the morning Aaron rolls over to his Prowler phone blowing up with notifications, and the cheery declaration of the news of the earthquake eight hours ago. The date, when Aaron checks it with only mildly shaking fingers, has incremented.

There’s relief sinking into his bones when Aaron goes back to bed. He’s woken up not three hours later, though, his news filters starting to hit his phone with another barrage of notifications, and each and every one of them says _New York’s Hero Spider-Man Found Dead At 26_.

And then the world glitches – God, Aaron hadn’t been awake for one of these before, it’s like the world goes technicolor and neon-bright and hallucinogenic trippy all at the same time – and he’s left sitting on his couch, his phone in his hand, bright and cheery morning outside. The date, when he looks again, has rolled back twenty-four hours.

He stares at that for a long moment, before he throws his phone across the room and tips himself back into a horizontal position on the couch. So the universe wants him to save Peter Parker’s fool-ass life? Fine. _Fine_. He can do that, and this time Aaron will keep the Goddamn kid _alive_.


End file.
